The new boss of FTSE 100 miner Vedanta has overhauled its pay structure in a bid to address an ‘unacceptable’ rate of fatalities.

Tom Albanese, the former boss of Rio Tinto, has made Vedanta’s dismal safety record his priority since taking over earlier this year.

Vedanta suffered 19 fatalities the last financial year, during which it employed some 87,730 staff.

By contrast, the world’s largest miner BHP Billiton, which employed 128,800 staff in 2013, lost three of its people.

Albanese said Vedanta was now placing greater emphasis on safety and will tie pay more closely to its efforts to reduce the number of fatalities to zero. ‘There will be a greater effect to a person’s potential bonus for poor safety performance,’ said Albanese.

‘It will be a combination of a formulaic adjustment, plus the remuneration committee will reserve its discretion for further reductions if they see fit,’ he told the Mail. Safety made up just 10 per cent of the method used to calculate executive bonuses last year, but the reforms are expected to see that level increase.

Three executive directors took home combined bonuses worth £1.23million last year, according to the 2014 annual report, achieving 44 per cent of the maximum.

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Share incentive schemes, known as LTIPs, will also have a discretionary element linked to keeping employees safe.

The changes are part of a broader set of reforms, including the deferral of 50 per cent of any bonus and greater provisions to allow Vedanta to ‘claw back’ extra payouts.

Albanese told shareholders upon taking over at Vedanta that ‘fatality rates at our operations are wholly unacceptable’. ‘It is correct that everyone from the very top of the company and downwards is aligned with the safety culture,’ he added.

The reforms, overseen by remuneration committee chair Euan Macdonald, are set to be detailed more fully in next year’s annual report.

At the firm’s annual meeting last week, Albanese revealed that Vedanta has suffered three fatalities since April 1, meaning it is on course to reduce its fatality count.

But the American said that this was ‘three more fatalities than we should have had’.

Albanese joined Vedanta as an adviser in September 2013, but was named chief executive earlier this year, completing a return to the top of a FTSE 100 miner.